Portable integrated circuit device and method for the production thereof

ABSTRACT

A portable integrated circuit device has a supporting body and a detachable mini-card bearing an integrated circuit. The mini-card is disposed on one end of the supporting body which has an elongated shape. The invention can be used for SIM cards in new generation mobile telephones.

This disclosure is based upon French Application No. 99/06849, filed onMay 31, 1999 and International Application No. PCT/FR00/01271, filed May11, 2000, which was published on Dec. 7, 2000 in a language other thanEnglish, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention concerns a portable integrated-circuit device having asupport body and a detachable minicard of the smart card type with asmaller format compared with the standard format of smart cards. It alsorelates to a method for manufacturing the said device.

It will be recalled that integrated-circuit cards with flush contactsmake it possible for example to perform secure transactions of theelectronic money, identification or telecommunication type. Thedimensions of the cards and the positioning of the contacts are definedby a standard corresponding to the international standards ISO 7810,7816-1 and 7816-2.

This first standard defines a card with or without contact as a thinportable element with the dimensions: 85 mm long, 54 mm wide and 0.76 mmthick.

A second standard has defined the format of smart cards dedicated to themobile telephony market.

Smart cards dedicated to telephony have a smaller format compared withthe ISO format which has just been given. These are minicards, known asSIM cards, 25 mm long and 15 mm wide, the thickness being identical tothe thickness of the cards complying with the first standard.

It should be stated that an integrated-circuit card with contact has aPVC or ABS plastic device according to the standard format. This devicecarries at least one electronic microcircuit (also referred to as anelectronic module or electronic micromodule in the literature) and aseries of contact areas for the electrical connection of themicrocircuit to an operating circuit.

It should also be stated that, according to a known method ofmanufacturing such a card, the support of the integrated-circuit card isproduced by moulding a plastics material or by lamination, and then themicrocircuit is incorporated in the card support during a so-called“insetting” operation. In practice, the microcircuit is glued in acavity provided for this purpose in the support.

It should also be stated that, up to the present time, anintegrated-circuit card with contact with a format which is smaller(minicard) compared with the standard format, is produced using themethod for manufacturing a standard-format card, which ends with anoperation of partial precutting of the card support in order to delimita region comprising the contacts zone.

It is therefore in this support that the smaller-format card is thenproduced, producing a slot with a contour which is formed in thissupport around an internal portion including the microcircuit and thecontact areas. This slot delimits the card complying with the secondformat corresponding to the minicard, which is connected to thestandard-format card by tabs which were carefully left during theformation of the contour slot so that the standard-format card serves asa support for the minicard.

The minicard is detached either by cutting a tab by means of a tool, orby causing the rupture of these tabs by pressing on the internal portionby means of a tool or more simply with the finger.

It is only at the end of manufacture of the card that the precutting iscarried out, for example by punching or by means of a cutting tool suchas a laser beam or a high-pressure water jet.

An example of an embodiment of such a card is for example described inthe document EP A-0 521 728.

The mobile telephony market is constantly changing and the trend istowards a maximum miniaturisation of the mobile terminals. Because ofthis, miniaturisation of the minicard format seems to be a necessity inorder not to be detrimental to the miniaturisation of the terminals.

The trend is therefore towards a reduction in the format of the cardsintended to equip the new generations of mobile telephones while seekingto preserve the size of the integrated circuits and even increasing it.

It is this new generation of portable devices that is involved. This isbecause the portable devices with minicards as proposed up to thepresent time consist of the ISO standard format card. This proves to bea technology which is difficult to implement with the new-generationportable devices, which are going to have dimensions which are evensmaller than those proposed up to the present time.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention proposes to afford a solution which is moreeconomical since it is better adapted to the very small dimensions ofthe portable integrated-circuit devices dedicated to the new generationsof mobile telephones whilst allowing easy handling of these devices andkeeping the advantages of graphical personalisation.

The invention relates to a portable integrated-circuit device having asupport body and a detachable minicard carrying the integrated circuit,principally characterised in that the minicard is disposed at one end ofthe support body.

According to a first embodiment, the minicard is connected to thesupport body by a breaking line.

According to a second embodiment, the minicard is connected to thesupport body by an adhesive disposed on one of its principal faces.

According to another characteristic, the support body is in the shape ofa tongue.

Advantageously, the tongue is rectangular.

Advantageously, the tongue has a width substantially equal to that ofthe minicard.

Another object of the invention is a method for manufacturing a portabledevice with an integrated circuit for which the integrated circuits havepreviously been attached to a support film including the contact areasand the said integrated circuits have been connected to thecorresponding contact areas thus forming micromodules, principallycharacterised in that it includes the following steps:

placing the support film comprising a plurality of micromodules in aninjection mould,

moulding on the said film on the opposite side to the contact areas, bymeans of a plastics material, so as to form a panel,

cutting the panel so as to obtain support bodies having at one of theirends the minicard formed by the micromodule housed in the plasticsmaterial.

According to another characteristic, the method includes a step ofprecutting the end of the support bodies.

According to one embodiment, the precutting is carried out during theovermoulding operation, the mould having an adapted shape so as toobtain this precutting.

According to another embodiment, the precutting is carried out duringthe cutting of the support bodies.

In the case where the support film is a dielectric, the material of thedielectric is identical to that of the overmoulded plastic material.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Other particularities and advantages of the invention will emergeclearly from a reading of the description made below, given by way ofnon-limitative example and with regard to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 depicts the diagram of a first embodiment of a device accordingto the invention,

FIG. 2 depicts a view in transverse section according to FIG. 1,

FIG. 3 depicts the minicard obtained after detachment of the end of thedevice 1,

FIG. 4 depicts a diagram of a second embodiment of a device according tothe invention,

FIG. 5 depicts a view in transverse section according to FIG. 4,

FIGS. 6A and 6B illustrate the manufacturing method in a variantembodiment,

FIG. 7 illustrates the method in another variant embodiment.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The device illustrated in FIGS. 1 to 5 is in the form of a plastictongue (or strip) of the PVC or ABS type. This tongue can be obtained bymoulding and then machining of the minicards intended to receive themicromodules or preferably by overmoulding of the micromodule in thecase of the embodiment depicted in FIGS. 1 and 2.

The portable integrated-circuit device 2 therefore has a support body 1of elongate shape having a free end 5 and a minicard disposed at thisend 5 of the body 1, and more precisely in this end 5.

The integrated circuit 2 could be glued in the cavity formed at the end5 of the support tongue. However, according to the manufacturing methodproposed for this embodiment, the micromodule (the assembly formed bythe integrated circuit, the contact areas and the electrical connectionsbetween the integrated circuit and the contact areas) is fixed byeffecting an overmoulding by injection of material into a mould, themicromodule being placed in the said mould.

The minicard is connected to the support body by a rupture line, whichcan be produced by a series of perforated points, tabs, or a thinning ofthe thickness of the body.

Advantageously, the end 5 has a partial precutting 10 in thickness andwidth to make it possible to detach this end from the rest of the tongueand to obtain the integrated-circuit minicard 50, hereinafter referredto as a mini-SIM 3G. It is possible to detach the end 5 either with acutting tool or by causing the end to pivot about the axis of the cut.

Preferably, the support tongue will have a width substantially equal tothat of the 3G mini-SIM card. The advantage is to optimise the surfaceto be personalised without any drawback in manufacture.

In the case of the second embodiment of the support tongue illustratedby FIGS. 4 and 5, the minicard consists of the micromodule, which isfixed to the surface of the tongue by a dual-face adhesive 6 forexample.

Thus the minicard can be detached from the tongue and placed in anew-generation mobile telephone.

The invention proposes a manufacturing method which is particularlyadapted to the first embodiment of the portable devices, described withregard to FIGS. 1 and 2.

FIGS. 6A, 6B and 7 illustrate this method. An overmoulding is effectedon the support film 200 of the micromodules 2-3.

This is because, in the technique for manufacturing portable devices,the technique of manufacturing the micromodules before the insettingstep is used. At this stage, the integrated circuits are fixed to asupport film, which can consist of a dielectric film carrying themetallic contact grid on its second face or directly on the metalliccontact grid, the integrated circuit being glued to this grid by aninsulating material.

In all cases, at this stage the contact pads of the integrated circuitsare electrically connected to the corresponding contact areas.

It is therefore proposed according to the invention to cut portions ofsupport film 200 so as to have 2×n micromodules 2-3 (FIG. 6A) or 1×nmicromodules 2-3 (FIG. 7) and to dispose the portions of film 200 inplastic injection moulds.

After the injection a panel 100 is obtained in which the micromodules 2are embedded.

Strips or tongues 1 are cut, by means of a suitable tool (punch, laseror other), along the cutting lines 110 in order to obtain the shapedepicted in the diagrams.

In the case of FIG. 6A, a larger number of support tongues will beobtained than in the case of FIG. 7. However, if the same moulds arekept, the variant illustrated by FIG. 7 will make it possible to havelonger tongues than those in FIG. 6A.

By way of example, the dimensions of the tongues which have beenproduced are between 4 and 9 cm for the length and approximately 10 mmfor the width.

What is claimed is:
 1. A portable element of the type provided with asupport body having a partial precut which makes it possible to detach acard from said support body, the card comprising a module having atleast one integrated circuit, a contact area and an electricalconnection between said circuit and said contact area, and wherein thecard is a minicard with a format smaller than the SIM standard, and thesupport body comprises a tongue of width substantially equal to that ofthe minicard, said minicard being disposed at one end of the supportbody which has the partial precut.
 2. An element according to claim 1,wherein the minicard has a width equal to that of the support body andis connected to said support body by a rupture line.
 3. An elementaccording to claim 1 wherein the module is fixed to the support body byan adhesive disposed on one of its principal faces.
 4. An elementaccording to claim 1 wherein the support body has the shape of asubstantially rectangular tongue that is elongated compared with thewidth of the minicard.
 5. A method of manufacturing a plurality ofportable elements comprising the steps of: attaching integrated circuitsto a support film having contact areas; connecting said integratedcircuits to the corresponding contact areas thus forming modules;placing the support film with a plurality of modules in an injectionmould; overmoulding the film, on a side opposite to the contact areas,with a plastic material, so as to form a panel comprising the pluralityof modules; and cutting the panel to a shape of the support body so asto obtain the portable elements, the modules of said portable elementsbeing housed in the plastic material of the corresponding support body.6. A manufacturing method according to claim 5, further including a stepof partial precutting of the end of the support body, of widthsubstantially equal to that of the support body.
 7. A manufacturingmethod according to claim 6, wherein the precutting is carried outduring the overmoulding, the mould having an adapted shape of widthsubstantially equal to that of the support body in order to obtain aprecut.
 8. A manufacturing method according to claim 6, wherein theprecutting is performed during the cutting of the support bodies fromthe panel over a width substantially equal to that of the support body.9. A manufacturing method according to claim 5 wherein the support filmis a dielectric, and the dielectric material of the support film isidentical to that of the overmoulded plastic material.